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10 Footballers who should really be in bands

Can you spot the footballer?

Sometimes looks can be very deceiving. Were you to spot Jan Molby and Matt Le Tissier on your local high street, you wouldn’t have them down as magnificent footballers. Similarly, Arjen Robben and Dirk Kuyt look like they work in the same call centre.

And so it is that after the jump. there are ten footballers who look more like band members than sportsmen…

Lionel Messi, The Monkees

No matter that he’s the greatest 21st Century player going, Lionel Messi’s haircut is a fitting homage to the dreamy pop groups of the 1960s. He has something of a young Brian Wilson about him, but everyone knows how that weird little story ends. Hence, he’d probably be more at home as a member of The Monkees.

Antonio Valencia, The Jacksons

For all of his aggressive attacking play, Valencia still has the boyish, sensitive look of a Jackson. You can almost hear him talking with that same ”frightened mouse” voice that seems to be a Jackson staple. Unfortunately, those who have actually heard him speak will have already endured that particular illusion shattered. Yes, Valencia’s voice has broken.

Jamie Redknapp, Take That

Redknapp has navigated exactly the same path from teeny heart-throb to smouldering 30something hunk that the various members of Take That have trodden over the last few years. And, like the band, he likes to wear smart – but rather fitted – trousers, whilst simultaneously staring at an object in the middle distance. If that little one who loves his grog and women doesn’t get better in time, Redknapp might yet make for an ample replacement.

Joey Barton, Small Faces

For everything that is eyebrow-raising about Joey Barton, he has been known to employ some wonderful barbers. At the height of his punching-people-in-the-face controversy, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in the brilliant 1960s Mod outfit, Small Faces. That is his only “plus side”.

Kolo Toure, The Crusaders

With his magnificent beard, were you to pop a stubby cigar in his mouth and hand him some army gear, Kolo Toure would make for a wonderful revolutionary. And yet, without the cigar, he has the look of a minor member of a popular jazz-funk band from the 1970s. Such as The Crusaders (above).

Dimitar Berbatov, Spandau Ballet

Back in the 1980s, nearly everyone in a pop group looked a bit like Dimitar Berbatov – he has their same angular bone structure and greased-back hairstyle. Hence, give him a little bit of eye liner, a few highlights and a kilt, and he’d be very much at home on one of those piano/guitar things for Spandau Ballet.

Theo Walcott, JLS

The latest pop sensations, JLS drive young girls absolutely berserk with their impressive dance moves, and songs about kissing. And yet they also appear to pay a similar attention to detail to their various grooming rituals as Arsenal’s Theo Walcott. If things implode, he could replace one of the ones that isn’t the main one, and no one would ever notice.

Gennaro Gattuso, Fleet Foxes

If you haven’t heard of the Fleet Foxes, that’s probably because you’re not the kind of person who likes to spend Friday nights eating pasta-based dishes, drinking a few red wines, catching up on Later with Jools Holland, and wondering if you’ve still got what it takes to fit in at “Glasto”. But here’s the deal – they all look like Gattuso. Or he looks like them. Either way…

Carles Puyol, Iron Maiden

Despite inhabiting a world where footballers receive constant fashion advice, and are gifted with free haircuts, Carles Puyol still likes to follow Heavy Metal trends from over twenty years ago. Put him on guitar, turn it up to ”eleven”, and he’d look terrific in Iron Maiden. Just lovely.

John Terry, 5ive

Yeah, you might think that JT is a little too tainted and vile to make it in a dreamy boyband, but you probably just haven’t considered 5ive as an option. An equally impossible-to-like gaggle of spikey-haired cretins, a hunch suggests that were they not locked in a recording studio, they too would be attempting to have it off with most of their friends’ wives/girlfriends.

Any more for any more?

Let us know who you think would look better in a band in the comments section…